Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Direction
of
change
'Harmonization
upward'
'
Race to the bottom'
Environmental
quality
gradient
North > South
Ecological
modernization
Environmental
protectionism
South > North
Greening the
North
Environmental
imperialism
Figure 7.1
Environmental convergence: four scenarios
the 'optimal' level of environmental quality are partly - perhaps mainly - attributable to
di
cient' for poorer people to breathe dirtier
air. This distribution-blind notion of optimality is unexceptional in neoclassical econom-
ics, but its wider normative appeal as a basis for policy is questionable. Elsewhere I have sug-
gested that a rights-based allocation of access to a clean and safe environment - a principle
enshrined in dozens of national constitutions around the world - is an attractive alterna-
tive to the wealth-based allocation principle founded on willingness to pay.
5
Here, however, our concern is not normative prescription but rather positive descrip-
tion. As in the NAFTA debate, the question is whether economic integration will lead to
'harmonization upward' in which the South becomes more like the North, or a 'race to
the bottom' in which the opposite occurs. These opposing outcomes are labeled 'ecologi-
cal modernization' and 'environmental protectionism,' respectively, in Figure 7.1, based
on prominent schools of thought that have emphasized these possibilities.
In principle we can distinguish two further paths of convergence, in which the
North-South environmental gradient is reversed: that is, southern production is cleaner
and more sustainable than that of competing sectors in the North. That this is not a purely
hypothetical possibility will be illustrated below. In Figure 7.1, these paths are labeled the
'Greening the North' (when the North moves up the gradient, becoming more like the
South) and 'Environmental imperialism' (when the South moves down the gradient to
become more like the North).
Of course, these stylized scenarios simplify complex processes. One scenario need not
ff
erences in ability to pay: in this sense it is 'e
fi
t all environmental problems; it is quite possible, for example, that in some respects the
environmental gradient runs from North to South while in others it runs in the oppo-
